Aftermath
by naglisnatalie
Summary: It's the day of Zane's funeral, but the ninja are broken. Slowly, they pick up the pieces. Just to see their friend again, a last time. Post episode-35.
1. Chapter 1

**merry Christmas. again. have some pain.**

**just kidding. I wanna dedicate this to KaitouKiwi, a good friend to me. she's been kinda down in the dumps, and I'm not sure if this is gonna help, but yeah.**

**here's to things going your way, Kiwi. enjoy.**

* * *

_Take a step before you leap  
Into the colours that you seek  
You get back what you give away  
So don't look back on yesterday_

_-Adam Lambert, Aftermath_

* * *

Cole lay on his bed, still fully clothed from the night before.

His sweatshirt smelled like beer and perspiration. It wasn't a good combination, but he really couldn't be bothered to get up and change. Not yet. It was too early.

After all, the funeral was only at three in the afternoon.

Cole was so sick of cake. He had been taking in slice after slice for the past four days, just throughout the day when he couldn't think of anything else to do, and when the weight bench no longer called his name. He was _so_ sick of chocolate cake, and he was _so sick_ of feeling empty even after devouring close to everything they had in the monastery.

He watched the ceiling. How many days of training was he missing right now? No, that's right, he was in mourning. He wasn't supposed to do anything. Yet, the urge to do something, anything killed him every day since the explosion. It dug deep into his being, carving out a nook for itself into the very center of his heart.

His phone buzzed on the bed beside him, startling him from the dead. The alarm burned his eardrums.

Cole sat up, letting his head spin as vertigo slapped him across the face. He pulled his sweatshirt over his head and swung his legs over the side of his bed.

The showerhead sent cold tendrils of water down his bare skin.

Cole leaned against the wall, holding the showerhead over his hair. Why couldn't he just get over it? Why couldn't he get over Zane, and how he was gone and he wasn't ever coming back?

"Why'd you have to die, you idiot?" he whispered, water cascading down his hair and tracing wet lines over his skin. The shower tiles blurred under his feet. "Why, Zane?"

Cole wondered if Zane could have answered him.

Clean clothes didn't make him feel better. He draped a towel over his shoulders to catch the water droplets that fell from his hair (or did they fall from his eyes instead?) and headed down the hall, his feet taking him to the kitchen.

* * *

Jay crumpled up his note.

"That's so stupid," he said to himself, and tossed it into the bin by his desk. He lifted his pen and wrote again.

_Dear Zane,_

Goodness, just hearing his name in his head was enough to send him over the edge. Jay swiped at his eyes, his lower lip succumbing to the hand of loss that crushed his chest in its palm.

He got up and flopped onto his bed, burying his face in his pillow. Tears warmed the soft fabric. He turned onto his side and hugged the pillow close to his chest.

"I can't do this, I can't. Why am I doing this? He's not gonna read it. It's not gonna do anything, Jay, stop believing your fantasies about him coming back and reading it," he whispered.

His body relaxed against the bed. While Cole had spent half of last night watching reruns of old TV shows, Jay had wrecked himself trying to write a note to Zane. He told himself he'd just leave it at his gravestone, along with the flowers they were picking up on the way.

Writing to the dead was a lot harder than he'd thought.

Jay closed his eyes. He wanted to go to sleep and never wake up. The word 'exhaustion' had never had a clearer meaning than now.

He thought about Cole. Stress eating was something Cole hadn't done since they'd first been training as ninja, and he'd only done it once. After that, Cole's primary outlets for stress were either the Serpentine or the workout room. He wasn't a total mess, and as much as Jay still felt a twinge of bitterness around him, he could feel the energy being sapped from the earth ninja.

The ground was finally crumbling underneath Cole's feet, and he couldn't do anything about it.

And Jay didn't like it.

Kai wasn't any better. That day after the battle, he just came home and shut himself into his room. Nya spent a lot of time behind his door, but she usually came and left with a full plate of food. Jay, Cole and Lloyd kept their distance. They didn't want to make things worse.

He wondered if they were doing the right thing. Zane would have known. He was made of metal, but he felt the deepest feelings.

Jay rolled over onto his stomach, extending his legs into the air. He tried to balance his pillow on his feet, only for it to fall flat onto his face. He realised he had close to no idea what Lloyd and Wu had been doing. It scared him that he didn't care as much as he should have.

The monastery was silent.

For once, Jay didn't feel like filling it.

He sat up and looked at his desk. He had three sheets of paper left in his notepad.

His heart tightened suddenly, as if trying to choke him from the inside. Jay squeezed his pillow tight to his body, a shaky sob escaping his throat and into his pillow.

"Why didn't you let go, Zane?" he asked the fabric. He flung the pillow into the wall, got up and returned to his desk.

Tears streamed down his cheeks as he wrote and wrote and didn't stop.

* * *

Kai felt horrible. Physically and emotionally.

It was eleven in the morning, and he hadn't moved from his bed since he'd woken up three hours ago. His blanket was twisted around his legs, pillow over his face.

He didn't think he could do it.

He just didn't want to do anything right now. Not today, not tomorrow. Nothing. He wanted to stay stagnant for so long he became one with the bed.

Zane violated his thoughts, and it was horrible, so horrible, he hated it, he hated it _he hated it_.

Kai had always been the one to do stupid things. It had never been Zane. It had to be him. It should have been Kai, Kai the good-for-nothing, the look-what-you-did-this-time, the seriously-why-did-you-do-that.

"It was Zane," he said to himself. He licked his dry lips. If he didn't eat soon, he'd probably die. Strangely, the prospect didn't scare him.

_What are you doing? Zane wouldn't want this. He would want you to go to his funeral for goodness' sake._

Kai sat up slowly. His back hurt. His heart hurt. He remembered every moment he'd hurt Zane. Calling him names, yelling at him, saying he was weird. Now he was gone, and he hadn't even said goodbye. Kai hadn't said sorry. How could he just go like that? How dare he?

Kai didn't cry. He had exhausted himself of tears.

"I'm done sulking," he said quietly, to nobody in particular. "I'm done doing nothing."

He didn't move.

Who was Zane to him, if Kai couldn't even go see his picture one last time?

Kai took a step towards the bathroom, and made a decision to tell Zane's story.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello! Last chapter for this tiny little story. hope you enjoy!**

**I completely changed Kai's speech, haha. xD**

Nya was pleasantly surprised to see her brother at lunch.

She almost dropped her bowl and simply ran to him, hugging him as tight as she could, feeling his warmth under his shirt. Alive and breathing.

"You came out," she said, releasing him, the smile blooming across her face.

Kai exhaled. The exhaustion hung in bags under his eyes, although he'd spent his days mostly inactive. He smiled at his little sister with a tenderness reserved only for her, his grip trying to be firm on her arms.

"Yeah. I just needed to kick myself a little," he said, clearing his throat as he sat down. Nya couldn't stop smiling at him.

She knew Zane's death had been especially difficult on her brother. If she were to be honest, Nya still wasn't completely over Zane being gone. But she was doing better at coming to terms with it than the boys were.

She had tried to coerce Kai into talking about his feelings every once in a while, trying to get him to let it out. Sometimes, it worked. Most times, it didn't.

Nya sat down beside her brother as Cole entered the room dressed in a black pullover and sweatpants. He stopped short when he noticed Kai.

"Hey, Nya. Hey Kai."

"Hey."

Nya thought she saw the faintest of smiles cross Cole's face. He sat down and didn't hesitate before picking up the spoon and immersing himself in warm porridge. Nya looked towards Kai, and the two exchanged glances.

"Cole, that's not healthy."

The earth ninja froze and put down his bowl. Half the porridge was gone.

"Ah, damn," Cole muttered, covering his face. "I'm sorry."

Nya stirred her food. She wouldn't tell him, but Cole's binge eating was becoming a problem. She barely had any food left in the pantry, and she wasn't even sure if they had enough funds to go grocery shopping a second time this week.

Nya's heart ached at the thought. Zane had always went to help her shop, picking out the exact weights and measurements of everything. He knew which vegetables were the best. He had taught her how to cook, and cook she did. She was pretty good at it too.

She wore his apron when she cooked now.

Footsteps broke her train of thought as Jay and Lloyd entered the dining room.

"Stop staring at me like I've grown an extra head," Kai muttered, shooting a glare at the both of them.

Lloyd averted his gaze. The legs of his chair scraped the floor. "Sorry, sorry. It's just...it's good to see you." His voice shook a little, but he smiled so wide his face might break.

Jay's eyes were rimmed with red, but he didn't say a thing. He picked up his spoon and ate.

Nya felt herself deflate. Things had been looking up, but the boys were still dejected as ever.

Guess it was just part and parcel of the grief cycle.

If they were upset, she couldn't imagine how Pixal was feeling. She hadn't been in contact since the incident.

"Where's Sensei?" Cole asked, setting down his empty bowl. "Come to think of it, I haven't really seen him around."

"He'll be coming to the funeral later. He and Garmadon left to discuss some important matters over lunch," Nya said, catching Jay's glance across the table. Jay didn't hold it for more than a second before diverting his attention back to his food.

"It's important, and we don't even know about it?" Lloyd poured soya sauce into his food. "Wow."

The minutes ticked by. Cole collected everyone's bowls and dumped them into the sink. Kai's was left half full.

"We're going out tonight," he said, one foot out the door.

"Why?" Nya asked.

Cole looked at her, a wan smile forming on his lips. "So I won't eat us out of house and home. Also, fast food portions are getting smaller every day."

"Oh, Cole," Nya sighed. "I'm sorry. You're right though. We have to go shopping tomorrow."

Cole shook his head and left.

"Hey, Nya?"

It was Kai again.

"What is it?"

"Uh, well...I wanna represent everyone at the funeral. Like, saying stuff. Is that okay?"

This was new.

Nya laughed softly, holding Kai's hands in her smaller, more slender ones. A sense of pride swelled inside her chest. "Of course it is, Kai."

Kai looked the happiest she'd seen him in weeks.

* * *

He already regretted this.

He looked around at the people, sitting before him with heavy hearts and melancholic gazes. His brothers had reminded him what to say for them numerous times, but he already knew what to say. He just didn't want to mess anything up.

_Dear Zane, please be listening._

"When I talk about Zane, I talk about one of the greatest people to exist. He was the bond between our team. I may have joined the last, but I know he was here since the start, and he was so important.

"Zane deserved a better team than us. He needed people to be there for him, people who could accept him for who he was. He-He didn't even know who he was. In the beginning, we had no idea of Zane's identity. We looked down on him and called him a freak."

Kai clenched his fists. Oh, how he wished he could eat his words. "Now we call him a hero. It's a title he deserves. People ask what powered him to keep going through all that he did. I honestly can't answer that. If I were him, I might have flicked my off switch early. All I know is, he was the one who powered me. He kept us going."

Kai thought back to the spaceship. He swept his gaze over the crowd. Jay had his hands pressed to his mouth, looking like he might burst into tears any moment. Cole wore a neutral expression, his brow knitted tightly over his eyes. Dareth was sobbing without sound. Lloyd looked down.

It was quiet.

Kai's lower lip quivered, and he took a deep breath. "That's not all. He was a great friend to us. He was—"

_Don't cry don't cry don't cry—_

"—my best friend. We'll never forget him."

The ground blurred as Kai left the stage and returned to his seat. His face felt numb. He felt Nya rubbing his back gently, his hand clasped in hers.

"You did great, Kai."

Had Kai said anything, he would have broken right there. And he didn't want to.

A sudden gust of wind rustled the trees in the park. Something cold and wet touched Kai's face.

He lifted his hand towards the snow, and Nya did the same.

Kai almost choked, tears streaming down his cheeks.


End file.
